ABDALLAH ELHANIA ET AL VS. AIRBNB, INC. ET AL

Set for Law and Motion/Discovery Calendar on Wednesday, August 20, 2025, Line 1. PLAINTIFFs ABDALLAH ELHANIA, and ZAHRA ELMENJAOUI's Motion To Disqualify Defense Law Firms.

Plaintiffs' motion to disqualify defense law firms is recharacterized per the order filed August 6, 2025 as seeking a ruling that defendants violated one or more discovery rules and, as recharacterized, the motion is denied.

Plaintiffs have not shown that the subpoenas issued to the City of Sunnyvale or defense counsel's review of the documents produced the City of Sunnyvale contravened any provision of the Discovery Act or Welfare & Institutions Code 827(a), much less that defendants or their counsel willfully violated the Discovery Act or section 827(a). While there was a failure to provide actual timely service of the subpoenas on plaintiffs' counsel, that failure appears to be due to plaintiffs' counsel having different mailing and physical addresses and not due to any effort to make the subpoenas "secret" and unknown to plaintiffs.

Nor have plaintiffs shown that they have standing to resist the disclosure of any of the records sought by or received by defendants from the subpoenas. Moreover, the records that were received by defendants were disclosed by presumably knowledgeable staff of the City of Sunnyvale who could have withheld disclosure if the records should not have been produced. Further, at least in part the disclosure of those records were later determined by the juvenile division of the Santa Clara Superior Court to be permissible.

In all events, plaintiffs have not shown how they have been prejudiced by production of any of the records to defendants nor have they established any grounds for the extreme remedy of disqualifying defense counsel.

This is a discovery order only and thus nothing in this ruling precludes plaintiffs from seeking, by way of motion in limine or in any other manner, an order from the trial judge precluding the admission of any of the records at trial.

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Any party who contests a tentative ruling must send an email to contestdept302tr@sftc.org with a copy to all other parties by 4pm stating, without argument, the portion(s) of the tentative ruling that the party contests. The subject line of the email shall include the line number, case name and case number. The text of the email shall include the name and contact information, including email address, of the attorney or party who will appear at the hearing.

Counsel for the prevailing party is required to prepare a proposed order which repeats verbatim the substantive portion of the tentative ruling and must email it to contestdept302tr@sftc.org prior to the hearing even if the tentative ruling is not contested.

The court no longer provides a court reporter in the Law & Motion Department. Parties may retain their own reporter, who may appear in the courtroom or remotely. A retained reporter must be a California certified court reporter (CSR), for only a CSR's transcript may be used in California courts. If a CSR is being retained, include in your email all of the following: their name, CSR and telephone numbers, and their individual work email address. =(302/HEK) |